Queen’s catalogue may be in play–for US$1 billion

Even though the market for buying song catalogues has slowed down, there are still some artists in play. One of the biggest still out there is Queen.

According to Bloomberg, Sony Music is working with another investor to buy the Queen catalogue with an offer of US$1 billion. That’s almost double what Bruce Springsteen got for his music. If this goes through, it will be an all-time record for a catalogue sale.

Nothing’s a done deal here. The story also says that talks are ongoing and may or may not result in a sale. Meanwhile, there are stories about Universal Music Group and some private equity groups sniffing around, too.

This would be a sticky one given that Queen’s rights are owned by Disney in North America (through Hollywood Records) and by EMI for the rest of the world. Queen Productions Ltd (Canada and the US) and Queen Music Ltd (the rest of the world) are owned equally by Brian May, John Deacon, Roger Taylor, and the estate of Freddie Mercury.

This is a developing story.